peanut

peanut,

name for a low, annual leguminous plant (Arachis hypogaea) of the family Leguminosae (pulsepulse,in botany, common name for members of the Fabaceae (Leguminosae), a large plant family, called also the pea, or legume, family. Numbering about 650 genera and 17,000 species, the family is third largest, after the asters and the orchids......Click the link for more information. family) and for its edible seeds. Native to South America and cultivated there for millenia, it is said to have been introduced to Africa by early explorers, and Africans transported as slaves brought the plant with them to North America. In the United States it has been extensively cultivated only since the late 19th cent. It is now grown in most tropical, subtropical, and temperate regions, especially in India and China (the major world producers), W Africa, and the SE United States. The peanut plant is unusual for its habit of geocarpy: when the pod starts to form, it is pushed into the ground by the elongation of its stalk and matures underground. There are two types of peanut plant—bunch nuts and vine, or trailing, nuts—named for the way the plants grow.

The seeds of the plants—peanuts, also known as goobers, pinders, earthnuts, groundnuts, and ground peas—are eaten fresh or roasted and are used in cookery and confectionery. They are ground for peanut butter, an important article of commerce, and yield an oil used for margarine, cooking oil, soap manufacture, and industrial purposes. The herbage is used for hay, the residue from oil extraction (called peanut-oil cakes) for stock feed, and the whole plant, left in the ground, as pasturage for swine. Peanut crops are usually harvested by hand except in the United States. Europe is the chief importer and processor, especially for oil manufacture. In the United States the amount of the crop converted to oil depends on the demand for whole peanuts; it is usually only 15% to 20%. Because of its numerous uses (George Washington CarverCarver, George Washington,1864?–1943, American agricultural chemist, b. Diamond, Mo., grad. Iowa State College (now Iowa State Univ.; B.S., 1894; M.A. 1896). Born a slave, he later, as a free man, earned his college degree......Click the link for more information. developed several hundred), high protein content, and adaptability to varying demand, the peanut is an advantageous agricultural crop.

Peanut allergy became an increasing problem in the early 21st cent., leading many parents to avoid exposing their children to peanuts. After a study reported (2015) that young children with a peanut sensitivity were more likely to develop a peanut allergy if they avoided, instead of being regularly exposed to, peanuts, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recommended (2017) that children begin to be exposed, with medical supervision in some cases, to foods containing peanuts by around six months of age to reduce the likelihood of peanut allergy.

Peanuts are classified in the division MagnoliophytaMagnoliophyta, division of the plant kingdom consisting of those organisms commonly called the flowering plants, or angiosperms. The angiosperms have leaves, stems, and roots, and vascular, or conducting, tissue (xylem and phloem)......Click the link for more information., class Magnoliopsida, order Rosales, family Leguminosae.

peanut

[′pē·nət]

(botany)

Arachis hypogaea. A low, branching, self-pollinated annual legume cultivated for its edible seed, which is a one-loculed legume formed beneath the soil in a pod.

peanut

a. a leguminous plant, Arachis hypogaea, of tropical America: widely cultivated for its edible seeds. The seed pods are forced underground where they ripen.

b. the edible nutlike seed of this plant, used for food and as a source of oil

Birds can be just as fussy as us, different birds like different foods, so the more variety you are able to put out the more chance of getting a wide variety of birds MONKEY NUT KEBABS YOU will need a wire coathanger, peanuts in their shells, wire cutting pliers and a piece of string.

Living on a street that my great aunt and uncles, cousins and school friends also occupied meant free reign to go "guising" with a great big bag, expectant to return home with a haul of monkey nuts, "wee oranges" and, if you were lucky, some kind of multi-coloured boiled sweet.

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